Chicken Day

If you had told me ten or even three years ago that I'd be assisting in slaughtering chickens in my backyard, I would have said you were crazy.  And yet, here I am having just come in from cleaning and de-feathering 8 chickens that were raised in my shed.   We raised just 6 cornish cross meat birds last year but this year we have 18.  We will process them in two batches, 8 this morning and another 10 another day.

This year, we had a good setup which I of course forgot to take a picture of.   We recently purchased a triple basin commercial sink at auction which will eventually be installed in our milking facility for washing milking equipment.  For now, it is sitting in the shed so we thought we'd make us of it and another stainless table which was also purchased for our future dairy operation.

We set the sink and basin up as work stations with garbage cans and kept a hose nearby.   We also have  a two burner outdoor gas stove that fits two large pots of hot water.   A pop up tent was also needed to keep us in the shade.    Once everything was set up and disinfected, we were ready for showtime.  Coolers filled with ice water awaited.  Three of us worked about 2 hours to process 8 birds.  Now that we've got a good system, we hope it will take about the same amount of time to do 10 next time.

So here is what we did:

1.  Jason hung the birds up in the barn by their feet one at a time, slit their throats and let them flap out their final bit of life.
2.  We rinsed the carcass with a hose a bit in the first sink and then plunged the bird into hot water on the burner.  Target temp was about 165 degrees.   This loosens up the skin for defeathering and also removes more of the filth that doesn't come off easily with a cold rinse.   The bird stays submerged for about 30 seconds to a minute though it can be a little less if the water is a bit hotter.
3.  Bird is brought to work spot to right of sinks and the feathers have to be removed.  If the hot water was hot enough, the feathers come out pretty easily but it sure makes a mess.
4. After de-feathering, the chicken moved to a different work station to be decapitated and eviscerated by Jason.  Organs and feet were kept in seperate ziplocks to use for stock or gravy.
5.  A final rinse to clean the inside and into the ice bath in the cooler to chill for a few hours before packing to freeze.

The whole process was quite wet, I and don't think a 90 degree day was the best choice but with other obligations, you gotta do it when you have time.

And so I add slaughtering chickens (though I didn't actually do the killing) to the list of things I thought I'd never do but have.

Meat packing day

We spent the afternoon a few weeks ago packing freshly butchered lamb and pork.  Three ram lambs who were born last spring went to the butcher Monday in our new used livestock trailer.  Our pig joined them.  All had to be packed in vacuum bags, labeled and stuck in the freezer.   We have another freezer practically full of meat including liver, heart, and some pigs ears and feet.  Jason is still working on the last of it that he wanted to butcher himself.   He cut up these ribs himself - don't they look lovely!

fresh cut lamb ribs

After coming home, my last task was to figure out what to do with the tallow that we took from the butcher.  I'm thinking of using it to make soap but after some online research have realized that it is good for many things including cooking, candles, and even skincare.  Who Knew?!

After reading some how to's, I decided to use my crock pot.  I took out the tallow and chopped it up in small pieces and put it in the crockpot on low.  We will see how it comes out.  I have more but figured I'd start with a small batch.   Our lambs were primarily grass-fed with a supplement of spent beer grain from the local brewery.   Hopefully that means the tallow is good quality.   I had no idea that our sheep would give us so many things - and we're just getting started.

Once the meat is all taken care of, the next project is to deal with the 30 fleeces we have bagged from sheering day.  They'll need to be skirted and sent off for carding.